BOOK CUSTOMERS HOPE TO SAVE SPECIAL SHOP.

Byline: DENNIS McCARTHY 

The ``Going Out of Business'' sign is up in the front window, and all the books inside have been slashed in price by 50 percent.

Another small bookstore is going under, set to close its doors for the final time on July 16.

That's if the owner of the place can get a few dozen loyal customers to get their foot out of the door.

``A lot of people are taking this personally because the store's become a big part of our lives,'' said John Alberti, who is spearheading the drive to save The Book Grinders in Van Nuys.

``If you've been brought up on Starbucks and McDonald's and walk in here, it may feel foreign, but the experience is so much richer than you'll ever get out of any chain,'' Alberti said.

Gary Kean, who owns the store, said that's exactly the feeling his father, Russell Kean, was shooting for early in the '80s when he got into the book business to combat the boredom of retirement.

The store on Burbank Boulevard near Valley College is sort of the ``Cheers'' of the book business, where everybody knows your name.

``We didn't shop. We visited - talking and arguing about everything from soup to nuts,'' said retired teacher Babbie Charnak, one of the first customers who walked into The Neighborhood Book Store in North Hollywood, the forerunner of Grinders, back in 1982.

``Russ was like that with all his customers,'' Charnak said. ``He realized a bookstore was a haven, a gathering place to meet other people who love books.''

Until his father died, even the son almost never saw him without an open newspaper or a book in his hand.

Gary Kean would expand on his father's passion - create a place where you could also have a cup of freshly brewed coffee and a sandwich.

He would add reading areas where parents could sit on comfortable couches and chairs to read to their children. He would invite community groups - from Alcoholics Anonymous to poetry groups - to use the store free for meetings and readings.

``When I moved the store to this area of Van Nuys in 1993 because I thought the community needed a good, local bookstore, I changed the name to Grinders because of the combination of books and coffee,'' Kean said. ``Nobody else at the time was doing it in the Valley.''

Now coffee and books go together at just about all the major chain stores. But, as Alberti says, the feel of Grinders is different, the experience richer.

But rich experience doesn't pay the bills. And Kean, who works as a manufacturer's representative for a consumer electronics firm, hasn't seen a profit from the bookstore in a long time.

``It's always been a labor of love rather than profit,'' he said. ``All I wanted to do was break even, but I can't even do that anymore. It's tough to compete with the advertising budgets of the big chains.''

So he broke the news to longtime employees, like Joanne Thompson, who began to cry. Then he put the ``Going Out of Business'' sign up and slashed prices to get rid of his inventory.

What he didn't expect was the backlash from customers, many of them willing to work for free a couple of hours a week to keep the store open, Alberti says.

``So many people from the community have responded,'' he said. ``I've got women who basically raised their children in this place wanting to help.

``One woman is a waitress studying to be a schoolteacher. She's in here a couple of time a week collecting children's books because she's worried that when she becomes a teacher they won't have books in the classroom anymore.''

But Alberti is a practical businessman. He knows people volunteering a few hours a week isn't going to keep The Book Grinders open.

They need a white knight, someone with deep pockets as well as a deep love of small bookstores where everybody seems to know your name.

``They're becoming like the small hardware store and mom-and-pop grocery store,'' Alberti said. ``We're losing them, bit by bit.''

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Photo: Gary Kean, owner of The Book Grinders, listens to retired teacher Babbie Charnak, who also bought books from Kean's father, Russell.

Hans Gutknecht/Daily News